Animal rights activists hold placards and wear animal masks as they protest against the mass slaughter of animals that takes place every five years during Nepal’s festival of Gadhimai, which is set to take place later this year, in Kathmandu yesterday.

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AFP/Kathmandu

Nepali activists rallied in Kathmandu yesterday calling for an end to religious animal sacrifices, months ahead of a festival that in the past has seen tens of thousands of animals slaughtered.Some of the more than 200 protesters wore fake buffalo, goat and chicken heads, as they chanted against a practice deeply rooted in the country’s traditions. “This is wrong and must stop,” Sneha Shrestha of the Federation of Animal Welfare Nepal said. Animal rights campaigners face an uphill struggle in Nepal, where Hindus make up 80% of the population and where ritual sacrifice is a part of everyday life and central to major festivals.Placards at the protest also called for a halt to sacrifices at Gadhimai, a festival believed to be the world’s biggest ritual slaughter.Once every five years, the tiny village of Bariyapur near Nepal’s border with India flows with blood, as thousands of Hindu devotees flock to its temple to honour Gadhimai. The temple’s head priest begins the centuries-old festival with the ritual sacrifice of two wild rats, two pigeons, a rooster and a lamb before tens of thousands of animals are killed.Although the temple banned the practice under huge pressure in 2015, activists fear sacrifices will still be held at the next festival, due in November.During the two-day festival, worshippers from Nepal and neighbouring India spend days sleeping out in the open and offering prayers at the temple.